Is it funny ha ha or funny oh no?

The other night my family and I were reminiscing about Lance's early childhood.  Trying to explain to Robin how every child make mistakes and learns differently. Robin is smart enough to know that Lance is much different than he is but doesn’t understand why. So we were telling him about Lance.  

One night when lance was about 4 he was just starting waking and was still wearing the SAFO braces. My husband and I were talking and I told him I needed to clean the fish tank. Lance still was only speaking sporadically at that point very few words and most of them only intelligible by me.  I was teaching Lance ASL so he would be able to communicate because of more than a few reasons and made the sign for fish and for cleaning so Lance would understand the conversation.  Ok so off we went to bed and sleep Lance was sleeping in a toddler bed and he woke up early. I was asleep because at the time Lance only slept for, at the most 4 hours, and every so often I would get so tired that I wouldn’t wake up before he did or worse I would sleep through him making the first noises of the day.

Then suddenly I get this 4 year old body flopping onto my chest and tapping my head.

“Momma, Momma, Momma  up, up, up...”

“Lance what’s wrong baby?” Come in bed and snuggle with mommy, I’ll put Olie on. You can watch Olie.  ( Praying that I could get 30 minutes more sleep.)

Momma, Momma, see, see, fis, fis!

See the fish??  

“I know baby the Fish are in the kitchen. We will feed them later, not now.” 

No no.   See fis, fis ( makes the sign for clean).  He is very excited.

Now I am all squinty eyed and blind as a bat minus my glasses, but kind of awake. “I know I have to clean the fish tank but they are ok Lance, they will be fine till I clean them.”

“NO Momma See Fis, Momma ( makes the sign for clean again)” He slips off the bed and runs to the kitchen, and comes back with two hands full of soap bubbles. Now my mommy instincts are on full alert. 

Lance where did you get those bubbles??

Lance is smiling and as he flings the bubbles all around very happy. He makes the sign for Lance an L pressed up against his Heart and the sign for clean and calling me as he runs back to the kitchen.

I jump out of the bed and run to the kitchen .

I CANT SEE MY FISHTANK!!!

ALL I SEE IS BUBBLES!! Tons and tone of bubbles!

I look down and on the floor, in front of the counter are an empty bottle of dish soap a step stool and a sea of bubbles!

In a panicked and exasperated tone “Lance What Did you DO?!”

Lance is so happy and all smiles, he sighs and continues to smile. “Momma Fis the sign for  clean” and then he claps his hands so happy so proud.  He helped Momma.

My eyes are tearing and all that I can think of is my poor fish. I start scooping out bubbles and Piling them into the sink. I had five large angel fish and two somewhat large gold fish and a black and white Pleko.   As I am scooping out bubbles my hand brushed what I assumed was a dead fish. I scoop out the poor fish. It’s one of my 5 year old goldfish. When we got it,  it was only about one inch long now it was five inches and nice and plump. I love my fish.

Then the damn thing nearly scared me to death!

 It started flipping and flopping around in my hand it was still alive! I quickly put him in a pot of water and continued to search for the other fish .. Perhaps all the stuff  I read about fish and soap was wrong? Maybe I had super fish that could survive soap. Then I grabbed my angels one after the other .. All very, very dead..

Finally I pulled my last goldfish and the pleko out they were alive! Amazing! They survived the pits of hell and my little soap daemon!

It took two days of rinsing and a full change of gravel and equipment but my three little hero’s survived the super cleaning skills of a over enthusiastic 4 year old.

So how do you explain to a 4 year old that fish don’t use soap to get clean? You don’t, you make sure soap like everything else that may cause a hazard gets locked up and you tell him only Mommy can give the fishes a bath!

So Lances lesson was No washing the fish for mommy and Robins lesson was 1 Fish can die 2) brother doesn’t think of the consequences of his actions and 3) no matter what mommy says she still won’t kill you because brother is still here ! LOL

Till the next installment of,

 Is it funny ha ha or funny oh no?

Because I have more fish tails and pet stories to retell.

Love ya,

Later!

To Play or Not to Play That is the Question?

My sons have very active imaginations.
Robin tends to be my little warrior out to kill monsters and evil doers. A true hero in the best sense of the word. Robin loves to be a hero but for him its a bloody battle filled with taunts and battles. Robins propensity for violence is so opposite of me and to how we are raising them it baffles me.

Lance is my fantasy boy he loves to pretend that he is  the best of many things. Some days he is the best chef, other days he is Nigel Marvin, the greatest naturalist ever in his eyes. He tries to be the charecter he picks and he always wants to be the best.  He sufferes from a infiriority complex of galatic proportions.  To be Lance is not good enough.

Lance and Robin have a curious relationship, they  are so unlike myself and my siblings that they leave me frustrated and confused.  Growing up my sister and brother and I were well behaved, we didn't fight, No Hitting each other.  We went everywhere together, heck Pete went on my first date with me..LOL.  Flora and I were confidants from the start although I didn't give her much choice. When she came home from the hospital the first night I sat next to her bassinet and whispered my secrets to her. We still tell each other everything we depend on the other to be there, and we are there all the time.   We are very close, even now we all live together and we talk every day. We fight but its tempered with love and mutual respect.  I am the oldest and Flora is the middle and Peter the youngest ( I suppose at 26 calling him the baby is pushing it LOL)  There are 8 years between each of us. We played together, we watched out for one another, and we backed each other up. We may have yelled at each other but we never hurt each other.

I can't say that the same is true for Lance and Robin, Lance has hurt Robin.  Robin has hurt Lance.
Its lopsided more of Lance hurting Robin than the other way around. Robin will take more abuse before he has had enough and then retaliate. The idea  that he has to defend himself against his brother really bugs me.
I tell them no hitting, no hurting your brother. No No NO .

True if someone tries to Hurt either of them the other will come running to his defense. I have had proof of that as Robin has punched a boy much larger than he is, and older and gave him a bloody lip,  for picking on Lance. Lance has shoved a girl out of the yard and told her never to come back because she made fun of Robin.  Now Robins retaliation was more violent, but Lance was up against a girl. Yes before you ask we subscribe to the old fashion notion of you don't hit girls.

If you watched my sons argue and fight through a day you would think they watch people fight all day. That my husband and I argue constantly. In truth in the 20 + years we are together we have had loud arguments only about 10 times and I am adding a few as a cushion because I think its even less than that.  We disagree but we don't fight about it.  We go off think about the others POV came back and discuss things.  Its one thing to say Italians are loud and argumentative and Puerto Ricans are the same as a collective people but our mish mash of a family just doesn't argue like that.

We are loud yes.
We like loud music,  loud talk and loud TV.
But we don't fight.  SO WHY DO MY KIDS FIGHT?

Why can't I teach them to get along? Why is what came so naturally to me and my siblings, such a big leap for my boys?
They can't pick a game to play co-operatively,  they cant talk about the same things without fighting. They argue about everything from TV to sleep.  What the hell am I doing wrong?

rob skull crushermountain.wmv

LancesMassive Axe weilding skillz.wmv

Why me?

To all the parents out there who need to be the voice of their children.

At times I may write this blog in my son’s voice, because his voice should be heard. The public school system has no interest in hearing his voice, the mayor has no interest in hearing his voice, and even the public at large doesn’t try to hear him.  So at least here Perhaps someone will Hear him other than his family.

At other times I may write just to hear myself,   because the woman who I was before I started this adventure gets lost. Crowded out by the woman who is, the mom of  2 children on the spectrum, a Wife,  a Daughter, a Sister and  a friend.

My first blog is going to be Why me? Not me Donna the mom, or any of the other titles I hold.

But, why me?  Lance.  Lance is the older of my sons and more severely afflicted of the two.   Lance has been diagnosed with alphabet soup.. That is:
Dyslexia
Dysgraphia
Dyscalculia
ADD
Turrets
Autism/Asperger’s
Visual integration issues
Sensory integration issues
Speech delays
Motor delays
Emotional controll issues

Do you think this Kid is challenged enough?
Lance is 11 and very high functioning. He has been aware that he is different since he was 4. One of the first cognizant question he ever asked me was, " Why can't I be like everyone else?"  “Why am I different?"  "What is wrong with me?"

I never told my son he was different, I never pointed out that his issues were impacting the family as a whole. When he finally began to speak and he was so difficult to understand that even I had trouble. I would tell him it wasn’t his fault it was me. My ears were tired.  That I needed him to slow down,  so my ears could catch up.  We were told he would be deaf  ( Thankfully he wasn’t. But his muscles were so globally weak that even the inner ear reacted slowly and out of sync. Causing him to hear a garbled mess not clear individual words)   upon hearing that he was deaf I imidately bought a book on sign language and started teaching him so no matter what he would communicate.
We have Worked to make him feel normal, to be just like everyone else. And still He asks.
Why Me?
Why Me?
Why am I a freak?
Why can’t I read?
Why can’t I be smart like you? Or even like Robin? (Robin is my 6 year old who is fortunate and able to read but has other delays.)
I just want friends.  I don’t want to be stupid anymore. I want people to like me.  

Mom  Please make me normal.. Please I’ll be good. Please...
As if he ever did anything in his short little life to deserve punishment like this.

So how do you answer why me's like this?
How do you make a little boy like this feel comfortable in his own skin?

I don’t know, but I am trying every day. Any hints please tell me.